General Craft & DIY discussion

Have a project going on that requires drywall or plaster. It's a bit of an art. Tell us about it here.

I'm not much for doing drywall, but I've had to hang my share. It's tough work. Screwguns & drywall screws have made it easier, although I don't understand why the screwguns run at such high rpm's. Makes it too easy to put them into the drywall instead of properly setting them just a hair below flush.

One of the best inventions was mesh drywall tape for patching, especially in older applications. It allows for a thinner patch since it doesn't require as much mud to bed it in & it holds up better in old houses with moveable corners. Great stuff.

We have a big drywall project underway. We have been slowly finishing our basement for quite a while. My husband framed it and finished four rooms, one by one (moving stuff around and working in spare time). Anyway, our kids are 14 and 12 and we are now HIGHLY motivated to get it completely finished so they have a place to go hangout and be noisy. Ron finished hanging the drywall this month and started teaching me how to tape. Since I'm a stay at home mom and he works shiftwork (with very little time off), we thought this would be a way to get it finished before the kids go off to university!
I started learning in a closet. I finished my first closet and its a thing of beauty :-) no one in the universe will ever see it, unless they get the vacuum cleaner out but hey, I'm still happy to have it done.
Since I'm still learning I'm 'honing my skills' in places that are out of the way. I have finished the storage area around the furnace and water tank and am starting on the hallway.
The easiest area to finish is going to be the rec room because there are long runs, few butt joints, few ledges. We will do that last.
The hardest challenge right now is doing the cut outs in the stairwell. Made 3 cut outs in the wall beside the stairs to let natural light into the stairwell.
I guess that's it for now.

Teenagers to the basement! Yes, indeedy!!! We had a split level & banished ours there, too. Often wanted to stuff them in a barrel & feed them through the bung hole until they grew up.
;-)

Good luck. Sounds like quite a big project that will leave you fighting drywall dust for ages. Have you tackled outside corners yet? Make them a little prouder than you think they should be. Makes them a lot easier. Nothing worse than having to fill over the flanges when they stick out too far.

Drop ceiling or is that drywall, too?

Ron's been doing all the outside corners so far. We are making rounded corners in most places where they show. The take a lot of work but look really nice :-).

The ceiling will be drop. That is what he put in for the other rooms we finished. With living on an acreage and having well water and city water lines running through the basement ceiling we just felt too paranoid to put a solid ceiling in.

I am looking forward to having a place for the kids to hang out. They are great kids but sometimes I need them to be somewhere else!! (but still at home of course)

I've never done rounded corners. How is that done?

I agree with you on any ceiling with utilities in it. I'm a real fan of function over form, anyway. Any time I hate having to cut holes to get into areas so I bought a modular house & there aren't any access panels. I had to cut a hole to swap out the small bathroom's tub spigot. Oh well, we bought the place for the land, anyway. Houses can be altered.

We used to call our teenagers trolls. They'd get so moody. Not their fault, but I know that some days you just need space from them. That passes, eventually. Only seems like forever.
;-)

to do rounded corners you start with a rounded corner bead from Home Depot. :-)
Its like the metal outside corner but shaped with a curve instead of a right angle. They come in stock lengths like 7', 8' etc. you cut it with tin snips to the length of your corner. we put them on the vertical wall corners but also where we've boxed in the ducting and such so there will be some rounded corners at ceiling height. When we get done I'll take some pics.

Thanks. Never heard of such a thing. I'm constantly surprised by the cool things they keep coming up with. Sharp corners are kind of a pain, literally. They get damaged easy, too.

I've done a few curved things with drywall. Off the cuff 'fixes' required scoring & breaking the drywall evenly. They also make (made?) 1/4" & 3/8" flexible drywall for doing arches & such. That was always special order & kind of a drag to work with, though.

You can make curvy drywall by wetting one side and standing it on edge... it bows!

But them again, home depot seems to specialize in widgits the prevents the need to learn skills....

The ceilings in my house are covered with textured paint & it's starting to let go in the bathrooms. Every time I vacuum, I enlarge the patches by using it to suck away at the edges which gives them a piebald look. It doesn't look as if they primed the drywall at all, but most of the paint is tight, so I guess I'll wait it out for a while.

Is there anything special that's recommended for bathroom paints? I've never done anything but prime & then paint, but I've also never done a textured paint ceiling in one. I didn't do this, either. Just inherited a mess.

Convincing the last bits to come off probably won't be fun. Rather than fight it, I think I'll get off all I can, then prime & paint it again with a textured paint to blend it together, at least in the big bathroom. In the little one, I'll likely take greater pains to get it all off since the smaller space & lack of windows makes a smooth ceiling more desirable.

Standard procedure in wet rooms is to use a semi-gloss finish that won't absorb moisture.

Textured paint is the worst choice for bathrooms! Very absorbent. (The advantage to textured finishes is it hides imperfections. It's asociated with cheap construction around here.) Since I assume your bathroom isn't anywhere near as big a Donald Trumps I'd put in the effort to scrape it off completely and smooth it out with mud and then seal it up good with primer and semi-gloss paint.

I have no idea how big Trump's bathroom is, but the master bath is pretty good sized, 9'x15', & possibly the worst laid out that I've ever seen. Tons of wasted space with a Jacuzzi tub & a 30" square shower stall. Not even a 36"! Dumb.

I've seen a latex stucco product that went on the outside of houses over styrofoam. It was pretty amazing & the house still looked good the last time I went by it about 4 years ago. I guess it was close to 20 years old at the time. Still tough & flexible with good color. When they were putting it on, we actually through rocks at one spot & it didn't mar or dent.

Anyway, I figured there might be a better textured paint out there with marvels like that stucco around. The big concern would be making sure it held on well.

Trump wouldn't be caught dead in a tiny 9x15 closet, nevermind a bath.

Exterior stucco is totally different and not suited to interiors.

There may be some new and better hi-tech chemical out there.. I'm hopelessly outdated after all. The fastest solution might be slapping on a layer of sheetrock, but then any mold above the damp ceiling will be forever growing until the blob emerges from your walls.....

Foxtower wrote: "Exterior stucco is totally different and not suited to interiors...."

Why isn't it? The stuff even had an anti-mold agent in it supposedly.

Anyway, I didn't say I was going to use it, only that I was impressed by the chemists that dreamed it up. They should have come up some better textured paint. I'm constantly amazed by what they dream up.

Exterior products are designed with no regard to humans and give off chemicals that help fight UV and temperature changes.

Home depot might have something new and wonderful for your bath... but having done many baths, BEWARE the mold hiding in damp places!